They were murdering them . . . fucking murdering them!

A group of people broke free from Brother Luke’s section, scrambling for the trees. He lifted his gun and sent a spray of bullets into the backs of their heads. Ruth screamed out beside me as the victims crumpled to the floor.

The elders were next; their bodies dropping down to the floor from their human wall as they willingly drank the fluid from the syringes. Screams of torment cut through the music, a cacophony of agonized death cries. Guards rushed around the mass of bodies, ensuring all the doses of poison had been taken.

Like a rolling wave, the thrashing of the children’s bodies began to slow . . . until they grew silent and still. The adults were next, then the elders followed suit. It was like a horror movie. People rushing everywhere, chaos and hysteria blurring the scene.

Then, suddenly, I saw a flash of red hair at the cell door. “Phebe,” I said frantically. “Open the door!”

Phebe held the key in her hand. Her hands trembled with fear, and tears clouded her eyes as she fought to get the key into the lock. My heart was a cannon in my chest as I tried to see through the madness beyond, as I tried to detect Judah through the chaos.

The lock snapped open. I pushed the door open, just as the sound of heavy gunfire came from the far-off trees. “The Hangmen,” I shouted. I charged out of the door and looked over the plain. The guards had turned away from the dying masses and were running, guns held high, at the Hangmen. I saw a few fleeing, running from the fray.

Fucking cowards!

I looked back toward the sound of bullets, and could see men in black moving from the trees. Even though there were only eleven of them, they somehow looked like a fucking army. They hit with perfect precision. The guards began dropping to the ground, bullets slicing through their heads and hearts.

Phebe backed away into the trees. I met her terrified eyes. “Grace . . . I need to get to Grace!” Phebe ran back toward the cellblock. In the distance, to the side of the stage, I saw my brother.

My body vibrated with rage, and I began to charge. I ran. I ran and I fucking ran. But as I approached the mass of bodies, massacred on the ground, my feet faltered. My hands lifted to my head as I looked down at the lifeless faces staring back up at me. Indescribable pain rocked through me. I forced myself to keep upright. The bodies stretched and stretched for yards and yards, as far as the eye could see. And each time I saw a small child’s frightened face—mouth open and eyes forever frozen with a look of fear—a pained roar ripped from my throat.

I made myself turn my face away, move away from the dead. I searched the plain. Judah was still crouching low by the platform, like a fucking rat. I didn’t even look toward the Hangmen. The red mist in my eyes and the rage burning in my heart had one target.

The fucking murdering bastard that shared my face.

My breath echoed in my ears as I pushed my legs to run as fast as they would go. Seeing a dead guard on the ground, I picked up the gun hanging limply in his hand and took the knife from his belt. Suddenly, I heard a female scream behind me. I whipped around, fearing it was Sister Ruth. But I smiled a fucking bloodthirsty smile when I saw Ky with his hand around Sarai’s throat. The brother lifted her off the floor as she clawed at his arms. He plunged his knife directly through the top of her skull and dropped her to the ground. Ky stood beside her dead body and spat at the corpse. I saw the Hangmen slaying the guards, massacring the pricks.

Then I turned my head.

A flash of white scurried from the side of the stage and made for the safety of the trees. But my determined legs propelled me forward. They didn’t stop until I halted at the end of the platform . . . where my twin froze and met my eyes.

His nostrils flared as I glared at him, my gun held out, fixed on his heart. And even now, in amongst all this fucking death and destruction, he didn’t look sorry.

The fucker was proud.

Always filled with so much fucking pride. I never knew it was possible to harbor such simultaneous intense hate and love for a person before that moment. The hate I understood, but the love . . . it fucking incensed me. I wanted to rip my traitorous heart from my chest and throw it onto the dead bodies stacked up around us.

“Brother,” Judah’s voice ripped me from my inner fury, and our identical gazes clashed. I realized the entire commune was silent. Not even a fucking bird sang in the distance— the heavy curtain of death, such senseless fucking death, chasing all life away from its polluted air.

It was why I still stood, still stared down my twin. Because I too felt dead. Fucking dead inside. Only rage was keeping me standing . . . rage and the knowledge that, in a matter of minutes, I would throw Judah’s lifeless body to the ground so he could join his sadistic little whore in hell.